Valser Valley (North Tyrol)

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Vals valley
View into the Valser valley to the Tux main ridge

View into the Valser valley to the Tux main ridge

location Tyrol , Austria
Waters Vals brook
Mountains Zillertal Alps
Geographical location 47 ° 2 '40 "  N , 11 ° 32' 28"  E Coordinates: 47 ° 2 '40 "  N , 11 ° 32' 28"  E
Valser Valley (Tyrol)
Vals valley
Type Kerbtal (outer section), Trogtal (inner section)
height 1100 to  1500  m above sea level A.
length 6 km
particularities partly nature reserve
Template: Infobox Glacier / Maintenance / Image description missing
St. Jodok with the entrance to the Valser Valley
The head of the valley with the Olperer and the Fußstein

The Valser Tal , also Valsertal , is a side valley of the North Tyrolean Wipptal , which extends from St. Jodok am Brenner to the east into the Zillertal Alps . The valley is traversed by the Valser Bach , which joins the Schmirnbach in St. Jodok and flows into the Sill shortly afterwards . The valley head to the Tux main ridge forms the Valsertal nature reserve . Together with St. Jodok and the Schmirntal, the Valser Valley has been a mountaineering village since 2012 .

geography

At St. Jodok ( 1129  m above sea level ) the Valser Valley and the Schmirntal, which leads to the northeast, unite and flow together into the Wipptal. The Valser Valley gradually climbs first in a south-easterly direction, then in an easterly direction. The valley head is formed by the Tux main ridge, which is dominated by the Olperer ( 3476  m above sea level ). Here are two smaller glaciers, the Alpeiner Ferner and the Olpererferner .

Via the Padauner Sattel (approx. 1570  m above sea level ) there is a transition to the Wipptal, which runs almost parallel to the southeast, via the Alpeiner Scharte ( 2959  m above sea level ) into the Zamser Grund and thus into the Zillertal .

The valley lies entirely in the municipality of Vals . It is populated with the scattered houses Aussenervals and Innervals, which are accessed by a state road, the 4.9 km long Valser Straße (L 230). The valley entrance is crossed by the Brennerbahn , which gains altitude in a loop around St. Jodok.

geology

The Valser Tal lies mainly in the soft slate shell of the Tauern window . Like the Schmirntal, it can be divided into two parts. The upper section to Kolb is a relatively wide trough valley with an alluvial floor and the remains of the terminal moraine of the Gschnitz stage . The lower section is narrower, deeper and steeper than the upper. The valley floor and the slopes are covered with moraine , at St. Jodok there is a high wall of the middle moraine .

A vein of blue and white marble stretches from Innervals to the neighboring Venn Valley to the south. This was dismantled earlier and u. a. Used for the floor slabs of the parish church of St. Jodok, the cathedral of St. Jakob and the Innsbruck Hofburg .

history

The valley was originally used by Rhaetian farmers from walls near Steinach as an alpine pasture area and called vallis , which simply means “valley”. The first mountain farms developed from the alpine pastures in the 13th century. In the Middle Ages, this section of the route to the Brenner did not go through the Wipptal, but through the lower Valser Tal and over the Padauner Sattel. During the Second World War , a molybdenum mine was built below the Alpeiner Scharte at great expense in order to extract the raw material that is important for steel production.

On December 24, 2017, from 6:17 p.m. CET, a landslide occurred that buried the Valser Landstrasse (L230) over a length of about 150 meters and cut off numerous residents from the outside world.

Nature reserve

The head of the valley was placed under nature protection in 1942 . The area was expanded in 2001 and today covers an area of ​​35.19 km² at an altitude of 1295 to 3410  m above sea level. A. at an average value of 2150  m above sea level. A.

The Valsertal nature reserve is also designated as a Natura 2000 area. There is little developed relatively, and includes all vegetation areas of the montane to nival altitudinal zone . On the northern slopes the forest reaches up to 1900 m, stone pines also grow higher. The dry southern slopes are largely unforested. The valley floors are traditionally cultivated, along the streams there are wet meadows and floodplains that are particularly overgrown with gray alder. In the middle altitude areas there are old alpine pastures , above them are high alpine steep slopes and the partially glaciated summit regions.

The reserve provides a habitat for many species of birds such as ptarmigan , black grouse , capercaillie , black woodpecker , three-toed woodpecker or rock partridge and serves as a breeding ground for migratory birds like House Martin , Black Redstart and Zilpzalp .

Like other valleys in the Brenner area, the Valser Valley has an extraordinary wealth of flowers. 28 plant communities and 428 plant species were identified, 36 of which are on the Red List of Endangered Plant Species. The occurring plants include u. a. Spiked bellflower , yellow lady's slipper , wolf monkshood , alpine aster , broad-leaved orchid , fragrant handelwort , black cabbage rose , pink spherical orchid and white hoeswort .

literature

  • Oesterreichischer Alpenverein (Ed.): St. Jodok, Schmirn and Valsertal. Proud mountains - gentle valleys. Innsbruck 2012 ( PDF; 1.4 MB )
  • Janusz Magiera: Report 1997 on geological surveys in the Quaternary on sheet 148 Brenner . In: Yearbook of the Federal Geological Institute, Volume 141 (1998), p. 294 ( PDF; 209 kB )
  • Natura 2000 data sheet Valsertal (PDF; 102 kB)

Web links

Commons : Valser Tal  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. New mountaineering village near the Brenner. ORF , October 25, 2012, accessed on November 8, 2018 .